UK “green jobs”; lessons from COP28 warm-up acts

We were hoping that the recent publication of an experimental dataset on the number of “green jobs” in the UK by the Office for National Statistics would be a welcome distraction from the politics of climate change. As it happens, the halving in the number of jobs in the UK in the onshore wind sector since the de facto ban on new projects came into place in England in 2015 only underlines how government policy and mandates can have a pivotal role in shaping the green transition. Meanwhile, looking ahead to COP28 later this year, the various “warm-up” events that took place in September suggest that the same-old tensions – particularly over climate finance and how quickly to reduce use of fossil fuels – will once again dominate proceedings.